Throughout the history of presidential debates, candidates have uttered lines — profound and profoundly ridiculous — and delivered nonverbal zingers or missteps that stamped them indelibly in the public eye.

Everyone's short list includes some timeless gems: Ronald Reagan's age-defying retort to Walter Mondale in 1984; Gerald Ford's baffling gaffe about Soviet domination in Eastern Europe in the 1976 race; Michael Dukakis' 1988 flat-line dismissal of the death penalty, even if his own wife were raped and murdered.

BAD TIMING. President George H.W. Bush was caught glancing at his watch and stumbling through a debate Bill Clinton nailed.
(Associated Press file photo)

Some debates turned on visuals and body language: John F. Kennedy mastering the new medium of television even though Richard Nixon may well have bested him on the issues; Al Gore's miscalculated eye rolls and alpha-male posturing in debates with George W. Bush; Bush the elder glancing at his watch and stumbling through a town hall format that Bill Clinton nailed.

And some of the most memorable "debate" moments come not from the actual debates but the caricature comedy bits that stemmed from them. Picture "Saturday Night Live" actor Dana Carvey as Ross Perot and Bush I. Or Jon Lovitz channeling Dukakis matching wits with a fumbling Bush: "I can't believe I'm losing to this guy."

All of them, over time, have gained a certain status — iconic.

" 'Iconic' is what large populations walk away with, what they talk about and remember," said Peter Simonson, associate professor of communication at the University of Colorado at Boulder. "Sometimes you can pin down that moment in a single line. In other ways, it's an iconic image."

Image was moving into uncharted territory in the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon debates, as television gave a new power to style, as well as substance.

Robert Watson, author of 34 books on politics and a professor of American Studies at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla., notes that while many observers gave Nixon the edge among radio listeners taking in the 1960 debate, Kennedy's quick grasp of TV's idiosyncracies gave him the nod among viewers.

Nixon even appeared unsure where to direct his gaze.

"But Kennedy always seemed to be completely comfortable with that setting," Watson said. "In a way, it was a perfect storm. It wasn't just one thing, with Nixon looking awkward and Kennedy looking calm. It was makeup, it was hair, his suit, Nixon being ill, sweating, shifty eyed, darting around not knowing what camera to look at."

AGE AND WIT. In 1984, when Ronald Reagan, right, took hits from Walter Mondale for being the oldest president in history. "I will not make age an issue in this campaign," Reagan said. "I will not exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience."
(Associated Press file photo)

TV also revealed body language — some impromptu, some calculated — that characterized the candidates for better and for worse. At times, it combined with certain lines to produce an enduring effect.

Simonson points to the Reagan-Carter debates as a prime example.

"Carter's presence and language and tone was like a Sunday school teacher in lot of ways, burdened with the troubles of the nation," he said. "That was visible and palpable. Reagan had a more uplifting presence. When he says to Carter, 'There you go again,' that contrast played out in his body language."

Perhaps the most memorable use of body language involved Gore in his series of debates against George W. Bush in the 2000 campaign. In what seemed a calculated move, Gore repeatedly sent physical signals designed to demean his opponent.

TOO DETACHED. When Michael Dukakis was asked, in a 1988 debate, whether he'd still oppose the death penalty for someone who had raped and murdered his wife, his response was philosophically consistent with his political beliefs. But the delivery proved almost emotionless.
(Associated Press file photo)

"He was a good debater, he'd been effective against Ross Perot and Jack Kemp," said Thomas Cronin, political science professor at Colorado College. "But against Bush, he came across as more wooden, less likable — and sighing when Bush would give an answer, that seemed to be unbecoming. The little things make a difference."

In terms of scoring the debates, Gore's strategy of sighs and eye rolls didn't prove helpful.

"It made Gore look like the economics professor — and nobody likes the economics professor, the snotty know-it-all kid in the first row," said Watson. "W was the guy in the back row making fart sounds."

THAT POSES A PROBLEM. In terms of scoring the debates, Al Gore's strategy of sighs and eye rolls didn't prove helpful. And his ill-fated attempt to press a policy point by rising from his seat and invading George W. Bush's personal space backfired.
(Associated Press file photo)

When Gore doubled-down, with his ill-fated attempt to press a policy point by rising from his seat and invading Bush's personal space, Bush disarmed him with a grin and a nod — and got a laugh from the audience.

"Reagan or Kennedy would've had a line," said Watson. "Gore had nothing. He just looked awkward. Body language is as important as what you say."

And how you say it.

When Dukakis was asked, in a 1988 debate with Bush I, whether he'd still oppose the death penalty for someone who had raped and murdered his wife, his response was philosophically consistent with his political beliefs. But the delivery proved so emotionless as to be disconcerting.

"I think everybody in the audience cringed, whether they were for him or against him, that he didn't show outrage, that he would maybe feel different in a case like that," said Cronin. "It was just a lack of emotion, lack of being real, maybe."

Simonson counts three ways in which presidential debate moments become iconic. One is the immediate reaction people have in their living rooms. Another is subsequent news coverage.

"But then a lot of the real power is from the way it gets spoofed, the way it's picked up in popular culture afterward," he said. "It continues to gain power long after the debate itself."

Archival footage from "Saturday Night Live" still has a vibrant life on the Internet, where memorable performances from Carvey's Bush I — "... stay the course, a thousand points of light ..." — to Lovitz's spot-on portrayal of the diminutive Dukakis take a humorous turn on political history.

Watson, who has gotten to know Dukakis and has brought him in to speak to his classes, once asked him what he thought of the Lovitz bits on "SNL."

"He said he laughed, he thought they were hilarious and really captured the notion of the debate," Watson said. "He wasn't offended. He admitted that sunk him, as well as his own poor performance."

Call it a case in point for the way comedy bits that zero in on candidates' foibles resonate with the public.

"We're tough customers, not only on Comedy Central but American people in general," said Cronin. "We're influenced by gaffes more than substance — because substance is complicated. Most of us are not policy wonks."

Asked a question about Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, a key issue in the '76 race, he replied: "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and never will be under a Ford administration."

In the midst of the Cold War, Ford had somehow misstated the obvious. Two other factors magnified the blunder. In a close race pitting two underwhelming personalities, it proved the most memorable line of the debate. And it added real-life context to the image, perhaps unfairly cultivated for comic effect by "SNL" comic Chevy Chase, of Ford as a bumbling fool.

"If there was a moment in a debate that swung an election," said Watson, "it was that moment."

"I will not make age an issue in this campaign," Reagan said amiably. "I will not exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience."

Everyone laughed — including Mondale.

"By any measure, Mondale won 89 of the 90 minutes of that debate," said Watson. "But Reagan crushed it in that one minute."

The fact that everyone from pundits to academics to Internet surfers still chatter about these moments suggests that, on some level, they were relevant to the campaigns.

"Not to say they won or lost an election, but they're iconic moments and we're still talking about them," Watson said. "It's the political Super Bowl. These are moments that judge us and our values. They're crossroads moments in political history."

MISSTATING THE OBVIOUS. Asked a question about Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, a key issue in the 1976 race, Gerald Ford, right, replied: "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and never will be under a Ford administration."
(Associated Press file photo)

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